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Unemployment Stories, Vol. 25: 'I Still Exist'

February 4th, 2013Top Story

Unemployment Stories, Vol. 25: 'I Still Exist'

By Hamilton Nolan

Unemployment Stories, Vol. 25: 'I Still Exist'The economy added more than 150,000 jobs in January, but unemployment still rose to 7.9%; if you count those who have given up and stopped looking for work, the rate is much higher. Each week, we bring you true stories of unemployment, from those who have lived it. This is what's happening out there.

I still exist

I don't know where to begin, because somedays I have to pinch myself to even know that I exist. Life today is so different since 2011. My first rendition of HELL HAS NO FURY. I can truly testify that I feel so lifeless in my will to exist beyond my circumstances UNEMPLOYMENT. Almost 50 years old in less than 2 years, I wake up trying to gravitate where do I fit in. My job/ career didn't validate me as a person but more so gave me a sense of purpose and allowed me to contribute to society. Family, friends and some people can not comprehend that unemployment is almost like experiencing the death of a love one. You grieve, become depress, try to work and push through your barriers without giving up, but then it hits you all at once, all over again NOT WANTED, REJECTED. Then here comes the generic compassion of DON'T WORRY, it is going to get better soon. It is not that folk don't mean well, they just run out of things to say that holds truth. I don't know about others that are unemployed, but I can honestly say that I don't Want or need self pity, just a fair opportunity to become apart of society again. CREDIT CHECKS, VARIOUS DISCRIMINATIONS, 60 MINUTES INTERVIEWS, QUESTION BY NOW A GROUP OF PEOPLE, that want to know, what have you been doing since your last job. OK, what about trying to survive this unfortunate situation. What about trying to keep a roof over my family head and my utilities on. Lets see, trying to keep food on the table without resorting to animal can food. What about, continuously praying that I don't give up and kiss this madness GOOD BYE. The nerve, of some folks. WHAT DO OLDER UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE DO. Try to maintain the balance to keep from falling through the cracks.
Please stop rejecting us and just accept us for being once dedicated workers with tireless work ethics, dependable and still trainable.

Understand that I did not request an early retirement/ without benefits (LAID OFF) to have my new title read (OLD AND UNEMPLOYED)

I still exist and others like me still matter and we still can make a contribution in today's workforce.

Tips from the front lines

I have never really been unemployed [until recently]. I have been working since I was 15. I worked my way through college. I did once take a 3 month leave from a job to do some travelling, and once I was between jobs in a good economy for about 3 weeks. But that was it. My wife had only recently been unemployed for 4 months and has a good understanding of what it is like. Her warnings and advice have been invaluable. That said, I was not prepared for the full brunt of it. I make a point of applying for at least 2 jobs a day, maybe more. These are not necessarily jobs on my formal career path, but are jobs I am qualified to do based on my career or based on my experience over the last 15 years. Anything and everything. The Kitchen Sink approach. Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. I call these "Joe Jobs". Meanwhile, keep an ear to the ground for the dream job, or at least the job that represents where I was in my career when I left the last place. Same level, same industry, hopefully more money. Use my networks, friends, and industry connections. The results are most interesting.

As 8 months have now gone by and I remain unemployed, I have a few interesting observations to share. On the subject of technology, I am torn as to it's being a help or a hindrance. Back in the pre internet days, or even in the early internet days, you had to hoof it into the workplace yourself to apply. This would sometimes involve meeting someone face to face. If they " liked the cut of your jib" they would give you a shot, and this was often the single bit of serendipity that got you a job. Although there were less ways to find the jobs and less ways to apply than there are today, there was not a machine filter that searched your resume and cover letter for keywords before even passing you onto a human. And there was less competition. You had to compete with maybe 20 people when things were posted in walk-in job centers and in news papers. On the internet, those 20 competitors are now 3000 competitors including folks from neighboring states. So you learn, you learn to tweak each resume and cover letter to hit the keywords for the filters. It becomes a bit of a game.

With the internet being the main medium for getting a job, you get exposed to the world of those whose business it is to take advantage of the unemployed. Posting up your resume for recruiters to see also exposes it to scammers, who then contact the desperate with vague offers of at-home employment at generous salaries "forwarding packages" or laundering money. Not all resume farming is so evil however, many of it is just invasive marketing on behalf of for-profit diploma factories who want to get the desperately unemployed to indebt themselves more for a useless degree nobody will recognize. Others just sell your information to telemarketers. When you are unemployed, you want your phone to ring. It will. Robo calls mostly.

You can also sign up for email notifications from services that scan the internet job boards for you. This will work. Especially if you are interested in hearing about jobs that have nothing to do with you, your experience, skill set, or anything you set up during the configuration of the service. After all, there is no harm in the forensic accountant hearing about the cruise line that is hiring ship-board barbers and the lawyer being notified of the exiting new opening for a pipe fitter in Zaire. Especially if that information comes in endless emails.

I have had literally a few dozen interviews in the last 8 months. Several a month. I interview very well in general, and I tend to be confident about it. However, despite the great interviews, I have not gotten the job. This happens in many ways, but mostly it happens in the simplest way possible. No follow up. I understand that companies cannot personally reject each person who applies. I can even understand them not contacting each person who interviews..but when you are two or three interviews in, there really is no excuse for that. An email would be nice. I accept that sometimes it may be me, but I have reason to think that most of the time it isn't. When you check the boards every day, you being to see patterns. How long an ad has been up, how many a company posts up, and you begin to see that some of them are ads that not only did you respond to and apply for, but interviewed for. And 5 months after you had the second interview and never heard back, you see the ad is is still posted. Not only did you not get the job...NOBODY got it. You begin to suspect that some companies like to post ads but hate to actually hire.

Being overqualified has been interesting. It leads to more polite rejections than most. I have had several incidences of it. I actually want to do the job. I may be more qualified and a few steps ahead of the job in my career, but I hated what I did and want to go back a few steps to where I was happy. Recruiters will say that they like my resume and will pass it onto their own boss because it was very good, but they didn't think I would be happy taking a step back. Ok..but you had my resume since the day I applied. There are no surprises here. Why interview me in the first place?

Then, there is the old adage that it is easier to get another job while already employed. I know Obama has a new law that says employers cannot discriminate against someone just because they are unemployed, but it is not that enforceable. People ask me what I have been doing. I have re-enrolled in school, just to SAY "I went back to school"..but I am not sure how I am going to pay for it. The longer the unemployment goes on, the bigger the gap in the resume seems. I sometimes think I should pick up in another country..or get some odd jobs ( I cannot even seem to find those) and back pack around South America like a 22 year old. Have a few lost years. Might as well, if I am going to be sitting around at home anyhow.

The experience is one of extremes. There are moments of incredible shame and despair. Being 40 and unemployed. Having my wife support me. Having nothing to do much of the time. The sense that your neighbors know your shameful truth. The feeling that the world is moving on outside everyday and you are doing nothing. As in the workaday world, Mondays are the worst. On Mondays, there are no new job ads. You are looking at the same ones that were posted up on Friday. You already applied. But everyone else is off to work and there you are. You can forget you are unemployed on the weekends, but come Monday, that reality crashes back in hard. There are moments of elation too. The feeling that you have kicked ass in an interview is unbeatable. That call back for the 2nd and 3rd one. Heck, sometimes even that first call is great after a few days of feeling like nothing has been happening. It lifts your spirits for awhile.

I find that keeping up a routine is important. Don't stay up late. Get up at the same time as everyone else. Look for work between 9 and 3. Then use the gym (there is one in my building). Clean the apartment. Run errands. It is very very tempting to be lethargic. It is tempting just lie in bed and give up. I have found myself slipping down that path more than once.

Beauty in struggle

Sadly, I've done relatively well in this recession - because I've been adapted to poverty a lot longer. My parents were immigrants who strove to advance from lower to the middle class. While other kids wanted to "hang out" with peers, I either focused on school or helped in the family business - I was 9 years old when I first learned how to tile a kitchen. School was still primary though. When I got to college, I had 3 scholarships waiting for me as a reward for my effort - happy endings, right?

My father died my sophomore year, throwing the entire household into dire financial problems - we sank back to poverty immediately. My brother had no hope for college - he acquired a security job for a few weeks, then ran away and eventually reappeared two months later to announce he was leaving for the military. I had to quit school - you can't really study if you have no food or shelter - and began working 40 hours at a warehouse with a pothead and a dropout. Being intelligent, I actually improved a few processes my second day on the job - saving time and effort - the reward being that the boss fired the unnecessary "extra workers" since I "clearly" could handle the work of 3 guys (for the same pay). I switched to various terrible jobs in which I excelled but had no hope of advancement or reward (just a lot of employers surprised at their luck, who soon tried to work me overtime without overtime pay). My family moved into a very impoverished neighborhood whose public library was smaller than a Gamestop; where a landlord had a scam with the towing company (towing visitors, charging & then splitting the profits); and where I recall being hit by a car while walking (luckily I landed okay). I lacked public transport so I was on foot for years, walking about 4 hours daily (a couple hours to & from work). I saw roadkill daily on streets with no sidewalks. Sometimes I ate mildly spoiled food (partly out of hunger; partly because I've got an iron-stomach now thanks to gradual exposure). The best job I found paid less than minimum wage but I took it because it was an office job (so I hoped it'd look better than fast food and warehouses on a resume). I slept on a floor. On a few occasions when the power went out on our block, I'd walk to the nearest gas station just so I could read while outside. All this and the recession hadn't properly even started.

I kept striving. We managed to move again closer to my old college and I got a new job in sales - the pay was still terrible, but it was only 3 miles away, easy walking distance in the sweltering Miami heat. Five days a week I walked to and from work; two days a week I walked to and from college, carrying every single book for every single class all day. Where "6 credits" is Part-Time and "12 credits" is Full Time, I managed to do 15 & 18 credit semesters out of sheer frustration to escape circumstance. I acquired 2 Bachelors (Foreign Affairs, Criminology), 2 Minors, a certificate in National Security; I'm fluently bilingual (English & Spanish), with elementary Arabic & French (from college); I'm self-taught in basic web-design (HTML, CSS, PHP, Photoshop, etc) and coding (mostly Java for Android). I'm also versed in construction. I cannibalize information on any topic I find a book on - and I graduated during the recession.

Out of college, I smoldered at my sales job, that had become horrid as cronyism had flourished. I was upset that I had neither transportation nor free time to pursue internships like some of my peers - frustrated hat it's impossible to share "all the above" on a resume, as if my ability to fight against circumstance doesn't matter against another student with no such concerns. Eventually I managed to leave sales for an office job unrelated to my fields of study (which was interesting but despite my increasing responsibilities & upward transfers, they refused to renegotiate pay until I was already out the door) - ironically, the job I took after that (thinking it was more stable) was the one that let me (and several other employees) go a handful of months later. I've been unemployed half a year now. Work related to my fields is a perpetual challenge - budget cuts have butchered our local police departments, so logically, staff that are let go are now competition for other related positions. All the while, my family are firmly American but still immigrants - how do you explain how the first in the family with so much education can struggle to find work? Some job applications take 1-3 hours and are online only but they're still mentally locked in a period where people would just knock on a door, fill out a 1-page form and have a job within the hour. How do you explain continued attempts at self-improvement when they think you're "competitive enough" - they see it as a luxury as if constantly working for free is fun.

The main reason I write is not to complain - rather, I see so many talk about suicide. We'll all be dead a long time - why rush? There is beauty in struggle. I could have given in to despair years ago but I refuse to kneel to circumstance. For quick movie wisdom, I recommend "Revolver" (disguised as an action film, it's actually a psychological critique on the "ego" and how pride gets us into most problems); I obviously recommend "Fight Club" (I've seen it with all the commentary & bonus languages - the "things you own end up owning you" mantra I credit to keeping me sane time and again). A quick search and read on "Minimalist Living" and even "Minimalist Design" can help you downsize and adapt while still finding beauty in spartan environments. And with a huge portion of all our incomes going to rent, I suggest many readers reconsider their local public colleges - for example, as a "non-degree seeking student" for a simple 1-credit course. Compare the fees (which will cover you 1 semester or 4 months) against your monthly rent. As a student you have access to the gym (and its showers & rest rooms), lounges (for students to nap), library (self improvement, napping & computer access), health center (reduced or free services) and parking (to keep your car). It still requires some cash, but it's a lot cheaper than some of the situations I'm reading people deal with. My point is, experiment. Consider fields seemingly unrelated to your focus. I remember years ago seeing some computer-science students dreading the cog-like programming jobs that awaited them; meanwhile, at work, the business-majors turned managers were bemoaning corporate pressure. The only guy who seemed serene was a computer-science guy who ditched software development for sales - thanks to his specialization, he excelled at matching high-end equipment and software to business clients and was mostly 'untouchable' at work. Rather than seek "the ideal profession" that "obviously" matches your schooling, it may be wise to translate your aptitudes to offer new services to other professions that normally lack the bonus. Keep your chin up.

#Foreverbroke

First off, more than likely, I've had more jobs than you since I'm up to 34 jobs in the past 11 years now. And I'm just 28 years old, which means, by time I'm 30 I should be at 45 jobs. I'm from ghettoburbs of South Central LA and most likely should have taken the drug dealer road than the education one...

I use to have normal emotions like normal people, but since I'm mentally numb from the economic situation and educated in fields that people often are confused by. I had to be a black male within a 1500 miles radius that decided to get a Bachelors in History to become a history teacher because I wanted to give back to my community. However, our Governator screwed up everything for new teachers and I gave up that dream to try and become a Librarian. Why? I love organizing books, comics, video games....and anything that's a puzzle to me since I have some organization disorder I don't understand yet.

Did I mention that I have a Master's degree in Library Information science. Did I also mention I'm a oversize muscle bound geek. I would like to be a Librarian one day. A library of video games, arcade PCB's as well books and magazine that are related in one place, with me as the head is one my goals.

Do you how does it feel to be 6'3, body built like I'm a football player, balled wearing glasses and knowing that every got damn interview, in this field, you will have the same setting? Two women, looking terrified as if I'm about to engage in some kind of fornication act right there, interviewing me, a male who wants to work in a library. Library....a field that's pretty much dominated by women these days...

Do you know how it feels to sit in a chair where you, the person that's being interviewed, knows more information about the field and the position than the person that's interviewing you? I've had 8 of these type of interviews in the past 12 months. The person interviewing me is lost and looking at me as if she found out that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person. This counts as a threat since I can replace them pretty easily...

I hustle, I grind and I can't help but to cry on my 28th birthday (June 11) because I'm still in the same trap. No job or hope for this black man. I'm already preparing to start breaking into people's home since I'm tired of driving all the way to the valley twice a week to sell plasma for a total of 70 bucks.

I've done everything what America told me do.....go to college, have fun, meet new people, screw someone until you graduate, and rack up a bunch of college debt that guarantee me open doors in the job market. I thought I was V.I f*cking P in the education system against the people who just went and got H.S diplomas. But it backwards it seems these days. Especially in my field. The only field where you can work anywhere in the library (except Page position) and make as much or more money than teachers with a High School diploma, but still need a MLS just to be a librarian. No college degree require at all for anything else. What. The. Deuce?

I just want to live the typical black man American dream for a little bit. Just make a lot money, screw some white women and worry about tomorrow. You know, that stuff that rappers talk about in their songs. All I can do is just laugh because at this point I'm delirious and I kinda wish I was in jail.....at least I don't have to worry money, debt or the stress of living....just have to worry about who I'm turning out next and if I'm gonna turn full blown sissy from the jail life.

But still, I sit here and keep trying. I just submitted a resume to a site, which then makes me fill out the information portion of the same shit I just submit . Not explaining sh!t or what I'm doing it for?

WHAT was the point of submitting the resume? Why the f*ck do I have to enter my f*cking name, address, phone number, education, jobs and job description when all that sh!t is on the GOT (GOD for some people) DAMN RESUME. Who's gonna read this? I'm not gonna get into the personality test that I have to do.

At this moment right now, I'm not for sure if I should blow my brains out or hang myself because I'm starting to believe that I will never find that game changer I've seek for the last ten years. I don't believe in hashtag or care it since I grew up on the terms "number" and "pound" as the idea for #. But....

#foreverbroke

Bad job vs. no job

For the past 3+ years I have been in a job with a horribly abusive and manipulative boss. Worse than any situation I ever would have imagined myself in.

I am highly conflict averse and my boss thrives in conflict. He makes shocking personal attacks and wild accusations. He has driven people to tears. He has even gone off on a couple of my clients for imagined slights, and lost me major deals. In 3 years, more than half our staff has turned over. My job is stressful by nature; the addition of an unstable boss who doesn't understand my job (and thus makes nonsensical demands and judges me on imaginary criteria) makes it nearly unbearable.

I would have quit after a year but I didn't because it's so hard to find another job, and I've searched for 18 months. I've tried to move internally but everyone knows how awful my boss is and they assume I'm so desperate to get out that I'll apply for anything. I am also in a perverse position of being overqualified for a lot of jobs in my field but under-qualified for areas that interest me, with no way to get professional development.

I have read stories here where people say "stop complaining about how stressed you are, I would give anything for your job." But a situation like mine is nothing to shrug off. I have had serious physical and mental repercussions; I reluctantly went to a therapist and she suggested I have post-traumatic stress disorder, which I thought was silly... but maybe it isn't.

I have sympathy for unemployed people and I know I'm lucky to have a decent salary and benefits. But I feel trapped, unwilling to tap into modest savings to live unemployed for a while, since it's unlikely I would find a job quickly (if at all). I would likely have to move as well, incurring a mess of new expenses. I have little alternative but to stay in a job I dread that's giving me an ulcer and autoimmune problems at the age of 28. And, if I quit out of misery I won't even get unemployment benefits.

Previously
The entire archive of our "Unemployment Stories" series can be found here.

[Thanks to everyone who wrote in. You can send your own unemployment story here.]

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Hundreds of Confused Anti-Gun People Think I'm a Gun Nut-And That This Is My Gun

February 4th, 2013Top Story

Hundreds of Confused Anti-Gun People Think I'm a Gun Nut—And That This Is My Gun

By Stephen Totilo

Hundreds of Confused Anti-Gun People Think I'm a Gun Nut—And That This Is My GunThere are people on both sides of the gun debate who make good points. And then there are people who have absolutely no clue.

In that latter camp we might include Senator Lamar Alexander, who thinks that, when it comes to people getting shot to death, "video games are a bigger problem than guns."

We might also include at least some of the 495-plus people who have shared a picture of me on Facebook and tried to make me a poster child for all that is wrong with people who like guns. These people—some of them confused, some of them ill-informed, and some of them possibly just extremely stupid—seem to think that, in the photo you see above, I'm holding a real gun and loving it.

No, people. I'm holding a gun from the video game Halo. But, hey, carry on with your great analysis about what this means about "guys like this" and the size of various parts of my body.

The photo you see above was posted on a Facebook page called "Republican Bigotry Hate Fear Lies and Distortion" on January 10. I don't know much about this Facebook page. They have 65,389 likes on Facebook. They seem to be Hillary Clinton 2016 supporters. They post lots of images of Republicans looking dumb. They rail against oil companies.

I see that they like to use an icon of an upside-down elephant to mock Republicans. Below that symbol is a tagline: "They Lie (And Think We're Too Stupid To Notice)". Gee, why would "they" think that?

Hundreds of Confused Anti-Gun People Think I'm a Gun Nut—And That This Is My Gun

I don't know why the RBHFLD people posted this particular image. (I've asked them; haven't heard back yet.) I guess they thought it exemplified what was wrong with gun culture or something. On January 10, the image was posted with the text: "Don't take away my gun."

It was a successful post. It got shared almost 500 times in the last few weeks. It's been liked by nearly 300 people and commented on by more than 400 people. The first Facebook user comment about it: "Dove hunting?" The second: "idiot"

The third commenter began to sense something wasn't right about this image: "That one looks like it was put together by way of a soldering iron and a lot of solder."

The fourth: "looks like Oswald" (later joined by: "Is it any accident that he's a dead-ringer for Lee Harvey Oswald?" You decide!)

As people commented, a certain theme caught on: "*over compensating* me thinks 0.o", "Laugh at my small dick now!", "One inch penis.", "Dude...I am SO sorry about your tiny penis!", " Bwahahahaha!!!!!! Of course he needs a weapon like that!!!! WTF!!! This proves so many theories to be true! Thank you :)))", etc.

Some people seemed alarmed: "Please, please take his gun away", "what a tool id skull fuck this dork !", "Needs his brain removed before he does some real damage", etc.

Some people shared their expertise: "Nice.... Military grade High Caliber Sniper rifle... ( I used one similar to this one in the Marine Corps. ) Able to punch a 5" hole in the flesh of a deer at 1K ft... Completely useless for hunting.. Unless you're hunting dinosaurs."

Oh, here's a good one: "Idiot has his finger on the trigger. That's a photoshop amatuer whackjob."

Voice of reason popped up, too: "The art behind him gives it away- that is not a real weapon, it's a sci-if prop. And we'll [sic] built, too!" and " You people do realize that this is a model of the sniper rifle from the Halo series and not a real weapon, right?", for example.

But, really, this one said it all: "Wow. Ignorance beyond belief!"

***

That photo of me is real. It was taken on September 3, 2009 when I was visiting the old Kirkland, Washington studios of Bungie, the development studio that was then working on a new Halo game. I'd dropped by the studios—a former supermarket in a strip mall—to tour the company's lobby and chat with some game developers in a small conference room a few feet from the studio's front door. A few minutes before the photo was taken, a police officer had peeked into the conference room and then quickly shut the door. That wasn't normal.

During my visit—and more or less unbeknownst to me until it was all over—cops had descended on the studio. While I had been chatting with Halo developers, police squad cars had been filing the front parking lot outside the studio.

Why?

A Bungie employee had been carrying a prop Halo sniper rifle down the sidewalk, toward the studio. They'd taken it out, for some reason. A concerned citizen had spotted him, thought it was a real gun and called 911.

I couldn't blame people for freaking out that day. You see someone who seems to be carrying a sniper rifle down a city sidewalk, you call the cops. Once the police figured out what was going on, everyone calmed down.

Click to view The gun was just a prop. It had been created for several live-action Halo shorts that were directed by filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, who was, for a time, tapped to make a Halo movie.

After the cops left, I went back into the lobby and took a look at the fake gun that had caused that stir. I wanted to take a photo, one of the gun lying idle and one with me holding it, to sort of recreate the scene. While I was getting ready to take the latter pic, more surprise visitors showed up. In walked two Halo fans, John Henry and Desirai Labrada. They'd met a few years prior, while playing Halo online. Earlier that year, they were married by a guy wearing the armor of Halo hero Master Chief. I'd been to their wedding—covered it for MTV. On that September day, they were just dropping by Bungie, too, and they loved the idea of the photos with the prop gun. So they snapped some, too.

I'd filed that story remotely from Bungie. Former Kotaku editor-in-chief Brian Crecente wrote it up. We laughed about it. What a weird series of coincidences all that was! Little could we have guessed there'd be this odd coda more than three years later.

***

I don't own a firearm. I've fired guns twice in my life.

The first time was from the deck of an aircraft carrier, into the Pacific Ocean. I was on an aircraft carrier with my brother, who was serving in the Marines. He and others on the ship were allowed to bring family members along for the final leg of their peacetime voyage. Military personnel on the ship gave tours and let people handle a rifle.

Hundreds of Confused Anti-Gun People Think I'm a Gun Nut—And That This Is My GunThe gun I shot was an M16, I think. First, I shot blanks and then one or two live rounds right out to the horizon. It was shocking how little recoil there was, how little it felt like what I was doing had potentially deadly power. I'll never forget that.

The second time I fired a gun was from the deck of my in-laws' house down south. I'd married into a family of hunters. They invited me to, if not go hunting with them, at least get a feel for one of their hunting rifles. They took one out of the gun cabinet and showed me how to hold it.

From the deck, I shot a pumpkin.

My other experience with guns? Well, I held a Halo prop gun once.

And at least once on the Internet, people saw a photo of me holding a fake gun and made fools of themselves, proving that there are careless people on any side of a heated debate, people who make nasty assumptions about things they know nothing about. Yeah, that happened too.

(Thank you to Twitter user Flawless Cowboy for the tip about this. This one made me laugh.)

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The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money

February 4th, 2013Top Story

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money

By Alan Henry

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money We've shown you how to kick your clutter habit, but why trash all of those things you don't need when you could make some money off of them? In this guide, we'll walk you through how you can appraise your items, where to sell them to make the most cash, and how to avoid geting screwed in the process.

One of the reasons it's so hard to declutter is because we look at an item that we don't need and remember how much time or energy or cash it cost from us to obtain. Selling that stuff may not bring back the time or energy, but it can bring back some of the money—money you can put towards the things you really want, (or save for your future).

Of course, you could definitely donate your unwanted items to worthy charities that will accept them, and even get valuable tax deductions in the process while helping a good cause. But if you're looking to make a little more money back, that's what we're going to focus on here.

Table of Contents

Choose What to Sell and Determine Its Value

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money In 2005, Kyle MacDonald, a canadian blogger, rose to internet stardom thanks to some savvy appraisal skills and amazing bartering techniques. He started with one red paperclip, and managed to barter item for item until he ended up with a two-story farmhouse. His story is an amazing read, but all Kyle was really able to do is identify people who valued his stuff more than he did, and who had something valuable to him. Photo by Katherine Johnson.

This is the nature of appraisal and bartering. We're not going to suggest you barter all of the junk you want to get rid of, but we are going to talk about how you can look at the junk you think has no value at all and figure out how much it might be worth to someone who wants it. Here's how:

  • Look up the item's retail value, brand new. The first thing to do is find out how much it would cost you to replace an item you want to get rid of. While you're searching, pay attention to how easy it is to obtain the item again. If you can't find the same item, look for reasonable, similar replacements and note how much they cost.
  • Look up the item's sale value, used. Now look around at sale sites like Amazon, Craigslist, and eBay to see how much people are selling the same item for. Make a note of how much they're asking for, and what prices auctions close around. Also keep an eye on how many people are selling the item and what condition they're selling the item in.
  • The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money Then, determine your selling price. If you see the item widely available new but not available used, you may be able to sell your item easily as long as you price it well. In contrast, if you see the item is difficult to find new but widely available used, you may have a hard time selling unless you're willing to undercut everyone or the condition of your item is better than most. The same is true if an item is easy to find both new and used. However, if your item is difficult to find both new and used but sale prices are high, you may have something unusually rare and can price accordingly. Assess the condition of the thing you want to sell, compared to the sale listings you've seen, and set your price. Don't shoot for new retail unless you know your item is rare—your best bet is to use other used or sale prices are a barometer. Photo by Steve Snodgrass.

You can follow these steps for just about anything you want to sell, assuming you want to get the most possible money back for it. Remember, there are other factors to consider: if you're selling to someone online, you have to account for shipping and insurance. If you're selling locally, people may expect values because they're picking something up or taking it right off your hands.

Similarly, if you plan to sell at a garage, yard, or community sale, the culture may play a role in how much you can get—not just the value of the item. We've discussed some of these specifics before, and we'll offer item-specific tips later, but keep it in mind when you're appraising the things you want to clear out of your home.

Finally, remember: if you can find someone to whom the item you want to get rid of is extremely valuable, moreso than it is to you, make sure to get how much they think it's worth. That's what made Kyle's experiment a success.

Electronics, Books, Video Games, and Computer Equipment

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money We're no strangers to selling electronics, gadgets, and even video games for the most possible cash. Check out those guides for more detailed suggestions, but here's a crash course in your best options for consumer electronics:

  • Amazon Marketplace has, far and away, the best overall selling experience. If you have an Amazon account, you can sell your unwanted electronics and consumer goods, and the site even helps you set pricing for your items and lets you note the condition of your item in your listing. The biggest benefit of using Amazon Marketplace though is that you get to attach your item directly to the Amazon listing for the product, so anyone shopping for it will see your used item listing along with new ones. If it's not available new, they'll still see it under "new and used." Just watch out for the cut that Amazon will take, which can be pretty steep. Photo by digitpedia.
  • eBay, despite all of its changes over the years that have made the site far more hostile to sellers, is still a popular destination if you're looking to offload a ton of stuff. Price yourself close to or better than the competition and your item will be sure to sell. The only thing you have to watch out for is the fees that eBay takes from the sale of the item, and then you'll likely have to deal with PayPal to process payment for the item. You'll also need to carefully craft your listing to make sure it's easily found, eye-catching, and better than the competition. It's not difficult to do: all you need is a good photo, a well-written description, and some savvy timing. If your item is valuable, eBay is probably worth it. If you're selling small, cheap stuff, skip it or sell it on eBay as parts, targeted at DIYers and hackers who'll buy it and fix it up. You never know who'll be interested in your old gadgets.

Depending on what it is you're selling, you may be able to find specialty sites that are willing to make the process easier. We've mentioned a few for video games, and a few more for cell phones, but your best chance to make the most money is still with the big guys. You could also turn to Craigslist here since you can set your own price and no one takes a cut, but whether you'll waste months waiting for decent offers is impossible to guess. Craigslist is great for some things (as we'll see shortly,) but it's a crapshoot with small electronics.

Books are a bit of a special case. We still think Amazon and eBay are great avenues to get the most money back, but if you're selling textbooks, don't forget sites like Chegg and Half.com. Check out our guide to selling textbooks for more tips there. If you're looking for more places to sell your books, the five best places to buy cheap textbooks are a good starting point for sellers too.

Clothing and Apparel

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money Clothing can be a difficult sell. You have to hope that someone needs the size you have available and that someone is willing to pay what you're willing to sell. That doesn't mean you can't get some decent cash for them, you just have to set up shop in the right conditions. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Etsy is well known and highly regarded as a great place to sell crafts and things you make yourself, but it's also a great place to sell clothing you already have. The community there is already looking for items like apparel and unique clothes, so it's a great place to put your own up for sale to see if you can get some good money for it. Photo by Maureen Didde.
  • Threadflip is a relatively new site that shows a lot of promise. The community is bustling, and while the site does have some restrictions on the kinds of clothes you can sell, it's a great marketplace for your brand name and good-condition clothing.
  • Craigslist lets you sell to your community directly instead of the internet at large. In some cases, that can work to your advantage, since more people in your community may be surfing Craigslist for bargains on things like children's clothes, but at the same time your audience will shrink. Again, your best bet here is to lot your items and sell them together.
  • Organize a community sale, yard sale, or sell at a local market. Sometimes the best way to get the most money back is to avoid selling your item online entirely. With apparel, sometimes people just need to see it in order to buy it, and an item sold is better than an item cluttering up your home because the listing has been up on Craigslist for three months. Get together with your neighbors and organize a community sale for your block or apartment building. If you have a local message board or neighborhood community page, sell your items there—odds are people will be more likely to buy clothing directly from a neighbor, childrens and baby clothes especially.
  • eBay is kind of a last resort here. If you can pimp your sale on your own, it might be worth it to draw attention to your clothing items. The trouble with eBay is that you depend on someone searching for your exact item or type of item to find yours and bid on it. Your best bet if you're going to use eBay is to bundle your clothing into lots and sell them all together. This works really well with children's and baby clothes.

There are tons of speciality and custom sites for selling clothes on the web, and they're worth exploring (you can grab some suggestions from this Quora thread.) You can also consider listing your clothing items on speciality clothing forums, subreddits (like /r/malefashionadvice), or message boards, if the listing fits.

Keep in mind that most of them have small communities, are targeted at specific markets (women's clothing, baby clothing, designer clothing, vintage clothing, etc), and thus have relatively small communities. Still, if you have a closet full of what those communities want, by all means sign up and sell.

Toys and Children's Items

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money We mentioned children's clothing, but toys and games also tend to sell fairly well, assuming we're not getting into collectibles and rare toys. Remember, do your research—especially with toys—before just throwing them up online somewhere, or else you may be selling a rare collectible for five bucks in a lot of "old toys" on Craigslist. As long as the items you have to sell are in good condition and not collectibles, here are some places to get decent cash for them:

  • Amazon Marketplace is a great resource for selling toys and games, you might be surprised to know. Since they're items with clear names and descriptions, you can sell them easily as long as they're in decent condition and able to be boxed up and sent out. Action figures out of their packaging or a full playset that's been put together already might be a tougher sell, but if you have some games still in their boxes, puzzles, or small toys easily packaged, it's a great way to go. Again, just mind the selling fees. Photo by John Morgan.
  • eBay has a wide audience of people looking specifically for individual toys and games at decent prices. If you do your research, it's also a great place to offload items that have become collectibles that you want to get rid of. Again, mind the fees from eBay and Paypal when you do this, and set your prices accordingly so you get the most bang for your buck.
  • Host a community yard or garage sale, or look for local consignment shops. Selling toys online can be particularly rough—almost as much as selling clothing. There aren't too many sites dedicated just to buying and selling toys, but you may be able to organize a Family-to-Family sale in your community where parents can get together to swap and sell items they no longer need for their children (including clothing) for items they do need. Alternatively, local consignment shops that may be picky about clothing may be less so about toys and games. Hit up Yelp to find some near you that accept secondhand items and give them a call.

Expensive or rare collectibles are a bit out of scope for us here, but if you have something that's especially valuable, you'll hopefully find out when you do the research we suggested you do earlier. If that's the case, you can always eBay or Craigslist it for its appropriate value, but your better bet may be to find a real appraiser who specializes in that type of item and seek their advice on keeping it in good condition or selling it appropriately.

Household Items and Small Appliances

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money Small appliances like blenders, microwave ovens, kitchen gear, and even household small electronics like humidifiers, space heaters, vacuum cleaners, and other items are all great things to sell online. Selling them in person works too, but they often have specific model numbers that can be easily researched. You're better off putting them in the hands of someone who really wants exactly what you have. Also, selling them online offers you the broadest audience possible. Try these sites:

  • Amazon Marketplace is perfect here because you can tie your item directly to an Amazon product listing, and we can't stress how beneficial that really is. When someone is researching specific models of appliance, they'll usually wind up at Amazon, and they'll see your listing. That's a huge benefit. Again, Amazon takes a huge cut for this because they know they're popular, so be warned. Photo by Chris Hunkeler.

Of course, yard sales, and community sales are an option here, but these types of items are more likely to hold their value than some others that people want to touch and feel before purchasing. You can definitely sell household items and electronics at a yard sale, but odds are you'll get the same or better money for them online.

Furniture and Large Appliances

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money Large appliances and furniture items break off from smaller household goods largely because they're next to impossible to ship—and even if you did ship them, it's unlikely the money you'd make from the sale would make them worth the shipping cost. In this case, offline methods rule. Here are a few to consider:

  • Craigslist has all but replaced the newspaper classifieds (which isn't as lucrative, but worth checking) so it's a natural place to list large furniture items. Couches, entertainment centers, beds, dressers, even large TVs that you want to get a good price on but don't want to ship anywhere are perfect. Since you're selling to your neighbors and your local community, you can specify that you want the buyer to pick up the item. Everyone wins. Photo by The Living Room.
  • Bring them to a community sale or flea market, or hold an open-house or moving sale. Flea markets, open-air markets, and neighborhood yard sales or community sales are a great way to offload furniture like old dressers, bed frames, and even large electronics you want to get a good price for. Culture may play a role in how much you make this way, and be prepared to haggle and negotiate. You'll also have to deal with the hassle of getting the item to the sale in order to sell it, but it might be worth it to deal with a large number of buyers and set your own price. Check Yelp for open-air markets in your area and see if they're willing to rent you a table for a weekend, or organize a collaborative sale with your neighbors for your block, community, or building. Together you'll be able to turn a tidy profit on some old large items. Alternatively, you can do it yourself and have an open-house moving sale, and let people come in and make offers on the things you want to get rid of. Just make sure to keep an eye on a bunch of strangers in your home, okay?
  • Sell them at auction. Long before there were sites like Craigslist and eBay, most people who had a lot of large items to get rid of but didn't want to sell them in their yard would put them up at local auctions. The auction scene is still bustling, and there are plenty of sites that can help you find one near you. Auction Zip and the National Auction List can all help you find an auction by location or category. Once you've found one, you can reach out and find out how to list your items. Of course, the trouble with auctions is that they're auctions: you have no control over your final sale price, and it's a roll of the dice that the item will sell at all, much less for what you wanted to get. Still, it's a great option for large items, especially if they're in good condition.

Obviously, Craigslist gives you the most control here and we'd suggest going that route first. I can't count how many people have quickly sold large items on Craigslist and all they had to do was wait for the buyer to show up, take it away, and collect the money. Be careful though, it's not all roses.

Art, Collectibles, and Other Personal Items

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money Art and collectibles are tricky things to sell because you really want to make sure you get your item in front of someone who explicitly wants it. It's not impossible, but in this case it's absolutely critical that you do your homework before selling to properly judge its value. If you don't think you can do it alone, or if you're looking at something you know is antique but have no idea how much it's really worth, stop now and get it properly appraised by a professional. Photo by _e.t.

That professional can then give you some advice on where to sell your item to get the best result, or even work with you (for a cut of the sales price, of course) to get it in front of the people who are most likely to buy it, whether it's at auction or a private sale. If you have a lot of antiques, collectibles, or other items in your home you need to get rid of, consider holding an estate sale to get rid of it all quickly.

If you have collectibles that don't warrant that kind of attention, you can always head over to Craigslist or eBay to list it with other collectibles there.

Go Forth and Sell, But Don't Get Screwed

The Complete Guide to Selling Your Unwanted Crap for Money If you've been following along, you should have options to sell all of your excess junk for the most possible money. Remember, the best way to sell furniture isn't necessarily the best way to sell electronics, and that's not the best way to sell books or clothing. Regardless of what you sell and where you sell, check out our tips to avoid getting scammed to make sure your transaction goes as smoothly as possible. Photo by Quazie.

Similarly, we have some useful tips to help you craft the perfect listing, get all the details right, and avoid coming off like a scammer yourself so your listings get the most attention and sell quickly. Selling on Craigslist deserves its own guide since it's so easy to get screwed selling there. If you're buying on Craigslist, we have some tips there too. Do your homework, appraise properly, and pick the right venue for the right gear, and you'll make some good money from the things that either have no value to you, or you know you could just do without. In the end, you'll have a cleaner, clutter-free home and money you can use to buy the things you really want, spend on the important things in life, or spend on experiences instead of things.

Title photo by Dustin and Janae DeKoekkoek.

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